After a day of constant drizzle, the heaviest part of a three-day storm is expected to move through San Diego County Thursday night, bringing with it a slight chance of thunderstorms, according to National Weather Service officials.
Through Friday, between 1 inch and 2.5 inches of rain are expected to fall on the coast and in valleys, with 3 to 6 inches in the mountains and up to 7 at Palomar Mountain.
The mid-February storm promised the kind of soaking that has proved rare during this unusually dry winter, and forecasters said it would be “certainly beneficial.”
“We’re expecting it to help significantly with the severe drought we’re in, although it’s not going to pull us out of that drought,” said Kyle Wheeler, a National Weather Service meteorologist. “We would probably need at least one more storm of this magnitude, if not more.”
When the rain intensifies, the heaviest precipitation should fall Thursday through the night, spreading toward the southeast, forecasters say.
But they don’t expect anything unusual for this time of year — certainly nothing like the torrential rains that prompted flooding in January of last year, Wheeler said. The San Diego River was not expected to reach flood stage but would be closely monitored, he added.
Winds will intensify Thursday, too, gusting up to 35 mph at the coast and in valleys and foothills and up to 60 to 70 mph in the county’s southeastern desert along Interstate 8, forecasters said.
Showers are expected to continue through Friday.
In the mountains, some of the precipitation was falling as snow Wednesday morning, and more snow could fall as the storm leaves Friday, forecasters say. “Palomar and Mount Laguna could get a couple inches,” Wheeler said.
But snow levels rose Wednesday to well above San Diego County’s highest elevation. They could drop again Friday.
Whether it falls as rain or snow, ample precipitation is expected in some of the region’s mountains.
For Thursday evening heading into Friday morning, as much as 1 inch of rain could fall per hour on the coastal slopes of the mountains, the weather service said.
Staff writer Caleb Lunetta contributed to this report.
